AUSTIN, Texas, March 31, 2009 /PRNewswire/ -- New Industrial Controller Offers Connectivity and Fanless Design for Control and Test Applications

AUSTIN, Texas, March 31, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- National Instruments (NASDAQ:
NATI) today announced the
NI 31xx series of industrial controllers that provide connectivity to NI test and measurement platforms and a fanless design for long-term deployments. The NI 3110 industrial controller features an Intel(R) SL9JT L2400 1.66 GHz Core(TM) Duoprocessor and the NI 3100 industrial controller features an Intel(R) 1.06 GHz Celeron(R) M 423 processor, both are configured with the Windows XP operating system. These controllers are ideal for rugged applications that require fanless cooling and a wide range of connectivity to external devices through
USB,
cabled MXI Express, Ethernet and
PCI or PCI Express.

With the NI 3110 industrial controller, engineers have a flexible control system for multithreaded applications that require dual-core processing and analysis. Engineers can use this industrial controller as an interface to control remote I/O with hardware such as
NI CompactDAQ,
NI PXI and NI plug-and-play PCI and PCI Express devices. This connectivity provides a high-performance and flexible measurement platform for reliable deployments and a durable system for long-term use. In addition, engineers can use
NI LabVIEW software to build human machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) applications and deploy these applications to the industrial controller.

The industrial controllers help engineers add to applications with a wide range of connectivity options, including PCI Express, USB, Ethernet and PXI. With cabled PCI Express connectivity for PXI, the controllers can support remote integrated and MXI Express chassis or any PXI chassis with a cabled PCI Express connector in test applications. The industrial controllers each offer four USB ports and an industrial fanless controller to add NI CompactDAQ or NI USB data acquisition devices with Windows XP. In addition, engineers can achieve specialized industrial measurement capabilities by installing a PCI or PCI Express board to support a single-slot controller for NI R Series, M Series, industrial communication or
PROFIBUS devices. For further connectivity, two gigabit Ethernet ports offer expansion to NI programmable automation controllers (PACs).

With the industrial controllers, engineers can use the two Ethernet ports and integrated video to add an HMI and flat-panel touch screen to NI
PACs with the
LabVIEW Real-Time Module. In addition, with the LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control (DSC) Module, engineers can build HMI and SCADA applications and deploy these applications to the industrial controllers. Engineers can use the LabVIEW DSC Module to interactively develop distributed monitoring and control systems. This extends LabVIEW to view real-time and historical measurement data, configure alarms and events, create security on applications or easily network OPC devices and LabVIEW Real-Time targets to log data to a historical database.

To learn more about the NI 31xx industrial controllers, readers can visit
www.ni.com/control.

About National Instruments

National Instruments (
www.ni.com) is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware and sells to a broad base of more than 25,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer representing more than 3 percent of revenue and no one industry representing more than 10 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 5,000 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 10 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the company's investor relations department by calling (512) 683-5090, e-mailing
Email Contact or visiting
www.ni.com/nati.

LabVIEW, MXI, National Instruments, NI, NI CompactDAQ and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.